Victory Girl

I’m having an issue. So, what else is new, Faith? You always have something to bitch about! Listen, voice in my head! I’ve got a legitimate gripe here! And that gripe is about the fact that 1940s vintage hairstyle tutorials are as numerous on the internet as grains of sand upon the earth, but precious few of them are real, honest to goodness vintage hairstyles – especially the ones that love to slap the word Authentic Vintage up all over their descriptions.

Is it so much to ask that there are a few videos with actual hair setting techniques from the time? A few setting patterns, maybe a technique for a specific kind of hairstyle instead of the catch-all ‘Pin-Up’ that the Rockabilly kids love so much?

Yes, I’m a proud former Rockabilly girl myself and I have nothing against the look at all, but there’s really no such thing as a ‘Pin-Up’ hairstyle that can be categorized as a vintage 1940s ‘do. In fact, the great majority of the ‘Pin-Up’ styles I see are a mixture of hair rolls, Bettie bangs, 60s make up a lot of Pee-wee’s Playhouse kitsch. And that’s not a bad thing, in fact I absolutely adore the Miss Yvonne (1960s) look – it’s so fun! In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Bernie Dexter is one of my style icons – but this is NOT a 1940s style.

I’m going to do you a favor now. One I wished had been done for me when I started out, and that’s to try and help you avoid the pitfalls of everyday 1940s hairstyles with what (very) little knowledge I do possess. Brace yourself, this is in the form of a rant – if you’re easily offended, you should have stopped reading by now.

There Was A Little Girl Who Had A Little Curl
First of all, where is the foundation curl? Where is it? 90% of all of the tutorials I’ve come across start with stick straight hair put right into hot rollers or hot sticks 10 minutes prior to the finished product. Not only that, but they in no way set the hair in any kind of pattern. It’s always “Roll everything under, lots of hairspray and voila!” Even most pageboy’s had a foundation curl or a perm! I flat out do not trust any totally authentic hair tutorial that doesn’t start with a pre-curled foundation of some kind.

Are there authentic styles that didn’t? Of course, but not many – do you think Ginger Rogers hair looked that way by accident? In my book, nearly any style that doesn’t start with a foundation curl or hair set of some kind is already preloaded with two strikes against it. If your tutorial starts with you having straight, dry hair with a razored cut for the love of Thor please make an emo fringe tutorial instead.

“I’m beginning to care for the wave in your hair…” ~ Gene Autry
Next in line is this idea that it’s not a vintage look without sky high rolls on top of your head. This is just wrong. In fact, rolls like the ones you see in Wartime Propaganda were about as major a style with the everyday woman as silver lipstick and blue nail polish were to the everyday women in the 1990s – just because it was too loud and flashy to forget, doesn’t mean it was THE trademark decade style that everyone wore. People entirely forget waves, which were a huge part of styles right up into the 60s but played maybe their most dramatic and beautiful role in hairstyles of the 1930s and 1940s. Actually the finger-waves most often associated with the 1920s (really started far before then) were more prominent in the 1930s and 1940s then they were in Clara Bow’s day.

To be honest, the great majority of Wartime hair was far too short to do those high, impressive ‘Pin-Up’ rolls people so associate with the fashion of the era. Not everyone had Veronica Lake’s length! In all actuality, women were encouraged to cut their hair short to do their part for the war effort, in many cases resulting in short but chic cuts like The Baby and The Middy. These cuts were often styled in curls and waves, and just as many did not have Victory Rolls as did have them from what I’ve seen and heard. In fact, a great many setting patterns I’ve come across have elaborate pin curl sets specifically designed to achieve these waves after brushing out. And many times the waves around the top-front section of the head were the crowning glory of a beautifully set and styled hairstyle. Did some have rolls? Of course, actually I think rolls are gorgeous! But the fact of the matter seems to be that waves, and ringlets (both brushed out and not brushed out) were the order of the day.

That’s if there are curls or waves in the tutorial’s style at all. A lot just rely on those victory rolls to get it done. Before I went entirely vintage, I didn’t get it. Laota’s hair is naturally curly and thick (mine’s thick and wavy), and little old ladies would stop both of us all the time, especially Laota, to tell us how much they wished they had hair like ours. That surprised us, because thick and curly hair is a pain in the ass! I actually suspect that less and less (but once very) common myth that stated if you didn’t waste the crusts on your bread and ate them, your hair would grow in curly may have come from this time era or just before. Curls were a huge deal, so much so that if you watch an old movie where there’s a woman who’s a vagabond or a tramp (old sense of the word, lol), she very likely has straight or thin/flat hair.

But that’s all stuff that’s small potatoes compared to my next gripe, my biggest in fact. I’m going to go out on a limb and say 90 percent of women *can not* do an authentic 1940s glamor hairstyle from beginning to end in five minutes. I really want to see someone try that, because I’ve seen many Get Pin-Up Hair in Five Minutes! videos and tutorials and have yet to see it done. I see people winding too long, too flat hair around their fingers up by their temples until they have what amounts to one huge pin curl on either side of their face that they then use bobby pins (not hairpins, because that would make sense) and a gallon of hairspray to secure these “victory rolls” to their heads. They then slick on some atomic red lipstick and glide on enough black liquid eyeliner to write out all of Genesis without the wand going dry, pin a giant flower to the side of their head, wink at the camera and call it authentic.

‘You Know You Have A Bad Tutorial When…’ Checklist
Because this bothers me so much (and because when I started out, I didn’t know what the difference between vintage and stylized was), I’ve decided to arm you and give you the choice I never had (snicker) to stay away from this kind of video before it even loads. If you check off more than two selections off of this checklist, do yourself a favor and rent Holiday Inn instead.

• The Totally Authentic Gwen. In the title, video/steps, description, or anywhere in the comments the hairstyle is referred to as being like, inspired by or exactly the same as Gwen Stefani’s hair next to any mention of it being classic or authentic 1940s styling. The same goes for Amy Lee, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Keira Knightley, Jessica Simpson and especially that Thor awful, wide awake nightmare, Katy Perry. Plus, if either of the terms Rockabilly or Punk is on the page, just keep a-going.
• The Wrong Cut. There is a still or photo of a teenage girl with hair that’s easily two feet long and stick straight somewhere on the page. If your hair is too long, it’s not going to look right outside of a Veronica Lake do, and even then really only Lake could pull that off.
• Bettie Bangs. The woman or girl in the tutorial has Bettie Page bangs. Let me start off by saying I LOVE Bettie, and I have no problem with the hairstyle. But. Bettie Page’s infamous photo shoots were from the mid 1950s, not WWII which lasted from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s depending on which country you lived in. Let’s put aside Bettie’s time era for a second, though, and focus on the plain facts. Most hairstyles for women in the early 1940s did not have bangs, especially not the clean, straight across bangs that came after Dior’s New Look of the late 1940s/early 1950s. When they did have bangs, they were usually fluffy and either strategically styled or pinned right to the front of the head (think the Betty Grable or the red headed hottie in the Droopy Dog cartoons who’s constantly ogled by the Wolf) or swept to the side. Sometimes even curled off of the face, but almost always cut long in relation to the rest of the haircut to give them lift and fluff when they were styled. A great example of great 1940s bangs is Barbara Stanwyck, who’s hair is the envy of every 40s loving gal I know. The plain facts are that the styles and dates for these bangs in a wartime 1940s style just don’t match – sorry to be the bearer of bad news, because these bangs are one of my favorite Rockabilly styles.
• Setting Lotion. No images, use or mentions of setting lotions. Any kind of setting lotion is fine by me, as long as the author realizes the need. Women had to set their hair – they had to. They were washing their hair maybe once a week by the time WWII came around, and their sets had to last them until the next wash. And when things were rationed they got creative – one book I’d read has a vintage how-to for rag curls to ‘refresh’ your curls for a date. I’ve heard stories of women using everything from library paste to sugar water to set their hair when things became scarce – even one woman from Chicago who claims to have set her hair with sap from the two pine trees on her father’s lawn! If setting lotions were such a big deal in the 1930s and 1940s, why do so many ‘authentic’ tutorials for 1940s hairstyles never mention or show their use? Even a wrap foam is fine!
• The Setting Pattern No real pattern to the setting of curls. This one is equally confounding. In order to achieve the waves and dips of popular hairstyles of the time, you almost assured to need a setting pattern for your curls. Alternating rows of curls to create waves, rolls, volume and flatter your face. This was back in the days when things like this were normally done by hand, at home and you had to be creative! In fact, during WWII it was popular for ladies magazines to publish free setting patterns to their readers. So, once again – if it was such a big deal back then, why is there little or no mention of it in most of today’s popular tutorials? If the author of the tutorial never mentions hair prep or any kind of setting patterns, just leave. I’m sorry, I’m a purist, and quick fix hot rollers don’t get it done – it doesn’t look authentic unless you’re really skilled. An example of the difference: Click the links to see An authentic 1940s hairstyle and a Modern Rockabilly hairstyle. See the difference? They’re both pretty, but one of them claims 1940s roots that it just doesn’t have.
• Sleek and Straight. Not an elaboration of The Wrong Cut, more like The Wrong Style. Many of these tutorials fail to ever curl their hair. They stick a couple of badly wound rolls on top of their head, a big flower and call it a day. Here’s just the facts, folks, women in the 1930s and 1940s curled their hair. It’s how things were. If you didn’t have curly hair, you curled it via permanents, rollers, pin curls, curl clips, rag curls, paper bag curls – you name it. Even Jessica Rabbit’s famous sleek pageboy in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a product of some cartoon curling! Wash and go hair didn’t really start to take hold until the late 1950s, and even then it was permed and wasn’t always truly wash and go. There’s a reason why hairstyles in the 1960s horrified the baby boomers parents!

I’m sure that’s not everything, but it’s all I can think of for now, lol. Are there exceptions to these rules? Yes, of course there are! I’m just giving you some food for thought that I wish had been given to me before I set out on my hilarious adventures in 1941. Use your own judgment – remember, nobody always or nevers and many of the listed items may come along with an absolutely perfect tutorial!